In an investigative report by Bloomberg, reps of multiple Wu-Tang members claim that when they recorded their verses for Once Upon A Time In Shaolin they thought they were going to be used on a project by Moroccan producer Cilvaringz.

“When we did the verses, it was for a Cilvaringz album,” Method Man manager James Ellis said. “How it became a Wu-Tang album from there? We have no knowledge of that.” U-God’s manager Domingo Neris also said, “It’s not an authorized Wu-Tang Clan album. It never was.” “The way he presented it,” Killa Sin says of his recording with Cilvaringz, “was it was going to be basically his album, and he wanted me to do some work for him.”

Here's what RZA said about the album in 2015.

“The album was recorded in secret with the members not knowing the exact outcome. But when we announced it to them that this was the plan, everybody agreed that this was a very unique idea.”

At least the first half of that statement seems to confirm that the album's participants didn't know their verses were for Wu-Tang album.

Neris took it a step further in the article and claimed the collective never agreed to release Shaolin as a Wu album, as RZA has been insisting.

Neris, who manages U-God, says the real story is that Cilvaringz gathered verses over the years from Clan members for his own projects and later stitched them together to make Once Upon a Time in Shaolin without the full group’s permission. “We’re very detailed about the quality and how we put our best foot forward,” Neris says. “We would never have authorized anyone to put together a project and call it a Wu-Tang Clan record without us ever looking at it, hearing it, or being in the same room together. That’s just the way these guys work.”